John Boehner Goes Literal

John Boehner, along with his partner in crime Mitch McConnell, perpetrated the greatest fraud in modern political history, quietly facilitating the Marxist transformation of America while loudly pretending to be leading the resistance. That is, he made his fortune selling a palliative for America’s suffering while actively exacerbating the causes of that suffering. Like a drug dealer. Well, now he really is one.

Boehner, along with 2016 Libertarian Party vice-presidential candidate Bill “Munchies” Weld, has joinedthe board of directors at Acreage Holdings, the only corporate cannabis enterprise which veritably boasts of being crony capitalist enough to meet Boehner’s crooked standards of “free enterprise,” while still being laidback enough to include a few oblique pot jokes in its official promotional materials. For example, on their website page announcing the Boehner and Weld appointments, CEO Kevin Murphy refers to the cannabis industry as “ascendant,” i.e., getting higher, while specifying his company’s purpose of “creating the best consumer-focused cannabis experiences and brands in the space.” The best cannabis experiences in the space. Far out!

Announcing that cannabis “has the power to heal and change the world” — Wow, man! — while intermittently hiding behind the usual pothead rhetoric of “medicinal use,” Acreage nevertheless declares its corporate goal as “Leading the way to safe, affordable cannabis for everyone.” Everyone. Exactly right. Every business enterprise producing consumer goods hopes to expand its market endlessly, ideally to universality. The drug pusher is no different. He’s just a salesman trying to expand his market, like any other.

The difference, in this case, is that this enterprise is hoping to exploit connections within the U.S. Federal Government to achieve public contracts and friendly legislation to expand their market in the way the political establishment loves best: hand in hand with the political establishment, so everyone gets rich together (except the general population, who get drained). Call it Cheech and Chong Go to Washington.

In a joint…er, that is, a shared letter detailing their enlightened decision to get rich by encouraging drug addiction — oops, I mean to improve life for millions, and other way cool stuff — Boehner and Weld explain that:

We need to look no further than our nation’s 20 million veterans, 20 percent of whom, according to a 2017 American Legion survey, reportedly use cannabis to self-treat PTSD, chronic pain and other ailments. Yet the VA does not allow its doctors to recommend its usage. There are numerous other patient groups in America whose quality of life has been dramatically improved by the state-sanctioned use of medical cannabis.

While the Tenth Amendment has allowed much to occur at the state level, there are still many negative implications of the Federal policy to schedule cannabis as a Class 1 drug: most notably the lack of research, the ambiguity around financial services and the refusal of the VA to offer it as an alternative to the harmful opioids that are ravishing our communities.

We are excited to join the team at Acreage in pursuit of their mission to bring safe, consistent and reliable products to patients and consumers who could benefit. We have full confidence in their management team and believe this is the team that will transform the debate, policy and landscape around this issue.

This is pretty straightforward, by pothead standards. Twenty percent of twenty million veterans equals four million veterans already using cannabis to “self-treat” their various ailments, in spite of the fact that Veterans Affairs “does not allow its doctors to recommend” getting high as a cure for life’s problems. That’s four million ready-made customers for Acreage’s product, if only, with the helpful political clout of Boehner and Weld, the company could break through the federal prohibitions and win the contracts to be the VA’s official supplier. And of course if the product were not only legal but officially prescribed by VA doctors, that four million users figure would likely go much high– um, I mean the number would increase.

So let’s be clear about this. Acreage is hoping to use the instrumentalities of the federal government to legalize and then sell its product to as many Americans as possible. And in case you are imagining this abuse is to be restricted to veterans, who apparently have a special need to spend their post-service years having an “experience” in “the space,” note Boehner/Weld’s careful wording: “We are excited to join the team at Acreage in pursuit of their mission to bring safe, consistent and reliable products to patients and consumers who could benefit.” To patients and consumers who could benefit. “Affordable cannabis for everyone,” remember?

People feigning shock over Boehner’s decision to join Acreage are conveniently neglecting the fact that in 2016, he officially leapt on the GOP establishment bandwagon in support of Donald Trump; in other words, this is not his first foray into pushing dope.

The former House Speaker is intending to use his influence as an insider and lobbyist to make marijuana a government-sanctioned and -promoted drug, in order to increase his wealth. If that sounds like a cynical reading of the situation, rest assured it is in fact my least cynical reading. If you want to hear some serious cynicism, wait until next time, when I explain what I really think this is all about. For a hint, consider the ruse being used by Acreage and Boehner to justify their noble work, to the effect that weed is, as Boehnersays on Twitter, the answer to “the opioid epidemic ravaging our communities.”

Cannabis used to be called a “gateway drug,” but now we are supposed to believe it is the “exit drug,” i.e., the way out of hard drugs. What nonsense. Talk about a Big Lie — the new Repeal and Replace, if you will.

If John Boehner and his ilk had their way, all Americans would be on dope half the time, preferably in a carefully moderated, federally-regulated way which would still allow them to complete their work, but would keep them easily mollified and content the rest of the time. Think of Brave New World’s happiness drug, soma, as a rough approximation of the goal.

Cannabis, for today’s political establishment, is just television and smartphones without the entertainment middlemen: mental numbness and social detachment on a collective scale, leaving its users distracted, unresponsive, easily manipulable, and unperturbed by the sort of problems that might concern a mentally acute person, such as the systematic deterioration of rights, the indoctrinated servility of the humble “worker unit,” and the general demand that one put up with any measure of abuse and meaninglessness in one’s life for the sake of “society,” i.e., the State. All such concerns may finally be palliated, as long as there is “good stuff” available to help one calmly while away the waning hours of the evening — the time and energy that might have been spent thinking, understanding, planning, and resisting.